Selected Writings of Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and Eugenics

Chapter Twenty-One: Tried as by Fire; or, the True and the False, Socially

ChapterTwenty-One Tried as by Fire; or, the True and the False, Socially This speech, which Victoria Woodhull gave at least 150 times, includes her most famous explanations of free love. The success of the speech helped alleviate her financial woes (Underhill, The Woman Who Ran for President, 259). Forwhatpurposehasthisaudienceassembled;andwhatdoesitexpect of me? Consider this question well now, since I propose to perform my duty regardless alike of approval or disapproval. In this duty you may listen to speech, such as, perhaps, you never heard from a public platform before. You have been invited to hear the social problem discussed; to see it placed in the crucible of analysis to be tried by the hot flames of truth, the fire meanwhile fed by stern facts, and stirred to intensest heat,untilthedrossshallrisetothesurfaceandgraduallydisappearin fumes which may be unpleasant to the senses, but leaving behind the purified residuum gathered, indicating clearly what is true and what false in the tested subject—the sexual relations. This is my task, not to be explained as it progresses in terms of glittering generalities, or of poetic fancy, or in gingerly words that may leave any in doubt as to what is intended, but plainly, honestly and earnestly, so that no one can misunderstand; but which will clearly set forth the conditions requisite to the health of these relations and | 213 tried as by fire the ignorance and abuse producing their diseases, and show what all knew, well enough, but few dare acknowledge to themselves, even: that there is much that is rotten in Denmark. Youarehereasmyguests,knowinginadvanceuponwhatsubjectI shouldspeak;andIshallexpectfromyou,individuallyandcollectively, that courteous treatment which would be my due under any other circumstances than these, in which I might be your hostess, and you my guests. I shall not utter a word, phrase or sentence, except such as I conscientiously believe to be true, and that ought, for the good of the race, to be uttered. Nor shall I, in the course of my speech, plain, bold, even bald as it may be, use any expressions that, by the remotest construction,trenchupontheboundariesofthevulgar.Ishall,however, call things by their plain, Saxon names, holding that there is no part of the beautiful, human mechanism for which the pure in heart and thought ought be able to blush while it is under consideration. . . . We nowunderstandeachother. It isnot expected, it is not desired, thatIwithholdanyfactImayhavetooffer,oradviceImayhavetogive, regardingasubjectwhich,morethananyother,oughttocommandthe attentionofallenlightenedpeople;butwhich,fromfalselyconceived ideasandawronglyeducatedpublicopinion,is,morethananyother, anathematized by almost the whole world. People may pretend to blush, and the editors may write of me as indecent and vulgar, and say I have no shame to speak as I shall, what they will not dare to print. But, after all, ought not they and you and I rather to blush with real shame that such things as I shall mention, exist to be spoken about? I say, shame upon the newspapers, upon the preachers, teachers and doctors, that it is necessary for me to tell you what they ought long ago to have freely discussed, and have thus relieved me of this unpleasant task! I say, shame upon them all! and if the papers must perforce reproduce this word, let them be honest enoughto properlyapplyitto theexisting factsthat ofthemselvesare obscene and vulgar, and not to the speaker, who deals with them, not becauseitiseitherhernatureorpleasure,butbecauseshedesires,like Boards of Health dealing with nuisances, to abate them. Therefore if any vulgar or indecent thoughts arise in the mind of 214 | tried as by fire any person when these things are discussed, they do not attach to the speaker, but belong wholly to the individual; hence whatever may be thought now, or said hereafter, by any of you, or written about them at any time, is, by no possible, far-fetched construction, an insult or imputationofferedme.Onthecontraryitisadegradationtotheirsubjectsorauthors ,indicatingthemoralstandpointfromwhichthey,and not I, view the subject; and an insult to their mothers, to be explained by bad rearing and worse moral teaching. So do not think that, when I pick up the paper and read the nasty things that are said of me, I feel insulted or hurt; but rather believe that I pity those who write them, and feel that they have need of a loving mother or a darling sister, to snatchthemfromadegradationinwhichtheycanseeonlyvulgarityor vileness, where there is, really, nothing except purity and holiness. Ifanyofthesemothersorsistershavesuchsonsorbrothers,letme beg of them to never let their yearning affections cease their efforts, nor their entreaties and tears to flow, until they are rescued—until...